


Wingman

by DawnsEternalLight



Series: Batfam Week 2018 [1]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Batfam Week 2018, Father Son Bonding, Fluff, Gen, Jason Todd is Robin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 06:43:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15479880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DawnsEternalLight/pseuds/DawnsEternalLight
Summary: Batman and Robin work together in many different ways. Most of the time it's side by side, sometimes there's a little distance.





	Wingman

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cerusee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerusee/gifts).



> For Batfam week day 1: Separation/Vacation. I chose separation

Bruce peered over the roof of a building and zoomed his lenses in to get a better look inside the old apartments across from him. He was searching for a light and or some kind of heat signature to indicate that the men he was looking for were even there.

“You find ‘em yet?” Jason asked, his voice over the comm clear and bright.  
  
Bruce grunted and shifted his gaze down to the next floor, it too was clear.

“Remember you promised me that you’d give me a whole breakdown of the bust tonight.” Jason continued, and Bruce could hear paper rustling in the background.

“I did.” Bruce answered, “How are you coming on your research project?”

Jason sighed, and there was the sound of more rustling pages, “It’s hard to pick a historical topic when there’s so many interesting ones ya know? And I don’t want to do something everyone’s done before, I wanna learn something new.”

Bruce hummed. He was halfway down his search of the building and worry was digging at his gut that he was at the wrong location. There had been two. It seemed like there were always two options. He’d let Jason pick, told him to go with his gut, a chance to let the kid influence some part of the bust even if he couldn’t be there.

“You know what’s the worst?” Jason said, with the sound of a book closing, “Stupid cafeteria tables. Who thought it was a good idea to make them connected to their stools? They’re nothing but useless ankle messing up, too short to be comfortable, death contraptions.”

The reminder of Jason’s ankle made Bruce wince, and his tone made him wish he could reach out and ruffle the boy’s hair. He’d done as much work as Bruce had searching for the counterfeiters, and Bruce was proud of what he’d done, even if he couldn’t make it on patrol.

“You’ve seen ‘death contraptions’, isn’t calling a table one taking it a bit too far?” Bruce asked, finally spotting what could be a glow from under a door.

“No.” Came the grumpy voice, and the boom of a book- probably dropped onto his desk. Bruce winced fearing for his keyboard, “Not when it means you’ve gotta go in alone. I’d say that’s a possible death contraption.”

“I have you and Alfred for backup, I’ll be fine.” Bruce told him.

He received a grunt in response. They both knew there was no way to switch the date of the bust. Not with having no way of knowing how long the counterfeiters were going to keep working here. It had taken weeks to even find this location, making it important to go in now. Jason hadn't even argued that they should change it, and Bruce hadn't needed asking twice to allow him to take over the comms for the night. Still, Bruce knew nothing could stop the bitter disappointment of not being able to go finish something he'd started.

“I promised I’d keep you updated.” Bruce reminded him, “To that end, I think I’ve found them.”

A cluster of heat signatures around a large hot box in the room behind the door had finally shown up in his vision. With a door between Bruce and the group he had little way of knowing exact numbers or where they were, but he thought he remembered the building having a lot of windows on both sides. Chances were he'd see them clearly if he made it to the other side. 

“Really?” Jason’s voice was excited now, the chair squeaking as he leaned forward or backward, or in the general direction of excited child.

“I need you to pull up the blueprints for the building and tell me if the second apartment to the right on the fourth floor has a window on the far side.”

“Hold your horses, B. I can't remember all that and pull up the info at once.” Jason said, and the chair squeaked again, accompanied by the click of keys (and Bruce’s working keyboard) then a clatter and a series of bangs, “Crap crapity crap crap.”

“What happened?”

“My elbow hit the stack of books I had on the desk and knocked them all over. Oh man, I think I cracked the spine on that book of facts, no, no wait, I just bent a page.” Jason’s voice grew slightly distant then came back as he leaned down to retrieve the fallen books. There was a heavy thump before Jason's voice came back, “Okay, it was which side again, the right?”

“Yes. Forth floor.”

Silence. More clicking. No more books falling, and then, “Yeah, its got windows on both sides.”

“Perfect.” Bruce said, pulling out his grapple, "Do me a favor and move any books you aren't using away from my very expensive computer." 

He made it to the other building with a grumbling boy as his background music and had secured a rope to the roof to start climbing down the other side when Jason returned to the conversation.

“Hey B. Did you know that during the second world war there was actually a plan to send bats strapped with tiny bombs into Japan?”

“What?” he asked, blinking.

“Yeah, they thought that since bats like to roost in dark places they’d just seek out all the buildings in the area and--”

“I mean where did this fact come from?” Bruce said, tugging on the rope just to be sure. It held, so he stepped down and off to start his descent towards the window. The brick’s gave him a good grip and he made good time.

“Oh. When I dropped the book it landed on this page.” Jason said, “Anyway, so they were going to put tiny bombs on bats and then put them in another bomb and boom release them that way.”

Bruce grunted.

“This is gonna make a great paper topic.” Jason said, “Everyone’s going to love my Bat bomb essay.”

He’d reached the right window and took a moment to examine the room. There were five men inside, two counting money at a table, two at a machine and one by the room’s door. He leaned back out of sight and pulled a glass cutter from his belt.

“Hey, B? Can I strap tiny bat shaped bombs to the bats in the cave?”

“Absolutely not.” he answered as he sliced a hole in the window, pulling the piece of glass away from it.

“It’s for science.” Jason tried, as Bruce tucked the glass into his belt.

“It’s for history, and the answer is still no. Hush for a moment, I’ve reached the window.”

“Really? Don't forget to give ‘em the old one two for me, B.” Jason said.

Bruce rolled his eyes and tossed a canister of knockout gas into the room, leaning away from the hole and any excess gas that might flow out.

“Well?” Jason said after a minute.

“I filled the room with knockout gas.”

“Aww man, I didn’t even get to hear you punch anyone.”

Bruce reached in and unlocked the window, pulling it open to release the leftover gas, before slipping inside. “I thought you were worried about me being out on my own.”

He could almost hear the eye roll in Jason’s answer, “Yeah, but I thought you’d at least punch one guy.”

He crept closer to the money printing press counting the number of unconscious men in the room. Four men were on the floor. Bruce should have counted before he opened the window. He looked up and found the door to the room cracked open, the guard must have ducked out when the canister hit. Bruce moved to check the hallway, but before he made it two steps something heavy caught him in the back. He staggered forward, the air almost knocked out of him in a gasp.

He spun as the fifth man went to swing what Bruce now realized was the plate from the press at him. He ducked, rose again, and swung a punch at the man.

“There.” he said as his punch connected and the man’s eyes went wide and he staggered back. “One guy, check.”

There was a delighted gasp from the comms, “Give him a kick for me too.”

“First you wanted a punch, and now a kick?” Bruce said.

His words elicited a confused look from the man he was fighting and a growled, “I didn’t ask you for nothing.”

“Not you,” Bruce grinned, baring his teeth in the unsettling kind of way Jason had told him a hundred times was ‘not something people like to see’, and clicked the comm onto its speaker setting, “My demon.”

Jason took his cue on time and let out a growl that could have been from Bruce or from his supposed companion.

The man stepped back, the plate dropping from his hand to bounce against the floor with a clatter.

Bruce pressed down a laugh, it had been a while since he’d played up the idea of ‘Batman is a true creature of the night’. “Would you rather fight me, or my demon?”

Jason gave the man a few blubbering seconds before he shouted, “Boo!” the sound echoed from the suit speaker and seemed to bounce around the small room, he waited only as long as it took for the first echos of the sound to stop before he continued in a gravely attempt at Bruce's angry voice, "Stand and be devoured!"

The man screamed, and tried to bolt, but tripped over the fallen plate and fell on his face. Bruce stepped forward and he yelped, “Don’t let your demon eat me, please! I just thought we’d make a quick buck, that's all. I didn't sign up for no demon monsters attacking me with the Batman.”

Bruce did not let his ‘demon’ devour the man, but Jason did hiss and growl a few more times over the speaker before Bruce decided to turn it off again. He worked in silence, tying the men up, and calling the police to the scene. Even Jason seemed to have gone quiet. Where Dick would have been giggling and joking in his ear, trying to get him to laugh again, Bruce figured Jason had gone back to his book with the danger (and his worry for Bruce) out of the way.

It was a yawn that told him Jason was still on the line.

“Tired?” Bruce asked, his voice quiet as he slipped back into the car, his plan for the night almost complete. He’d do a drive of his patrol route and then call it early.

“Just thinking.”

“About?”

Another yawn preceded his answer, “Do you think you could train bats to attack your enemies? I can’t help but wonder if it would add to the whole scary thing you do and be another bit of help.”

“Is this you trying to get me to agree to strapping tiny bombs to bats again?” Bruce asked, as the corner of his mouth turned up.

“No.” the word felt a bit pouty, “It wasn’t the worst of plans. I mean it had problems, but I bet you could get them to do something for you on a smaller level. We--” he yawned again, “We’ve already got bats and a reputation. Just letting them fly might even scare the baddies.”

“Hmm. Tell me more about the original plan.” Bruce said, humoring him.

His drive was peppered with yawns as Jason’s descriptions came slower and slower. At some point the comm went quiet with soft deep breathing replacing words and yawns. Patrol was as quiet as Jason had become, rare enough lately but nice.

Bruce wasn’t surprised to find Jason sleeping at the computer when he returned to the cave. He’d fallen asleep with his head pillowed on a large book, one of the corners was crumpled under a cheek. Little goosebumps were raised on his arms as they were flung out on the desk.

Bruce uncliped his cape and tugged it around Jason’s shoulders, ruffling his hair lightly before pulling away. Jason shifted, his eyelids flickering open.

“Don’t tell the bats, B, they might blow up.” he mumbled.

Bruce chuckled, “Dreaming about your bat bombs, Jaylad?”

“Mmm, Bruce?” Jason pushed himself up, crinkling the pages further.

“Hi.” Bruce said, “Ready for bed?”

Jason shook his head, a lock of hair pointing straight up and bouncing with it, “I’mma stay up with you.”

“You have to be awake to do that, kiddo.”

Jason scrunched his nose at him, “I’m awake now.”

Bruce smiled down at him, “Okay, why don’t you get my report ready while I shower? Then when I finish it we can head up to bed together?”

Jason nodded, tugging the cape closer around himself. Bruce left him, the slow sounds of clicking drifting over to him. He showered quickly, and didn’t bother drying his hair when he was out, dragging a soft tee over his still dripping hair.

Jason’s head was dipping into his chest when he came back out prompting Bruce to run his a hand through his own hair and flick a bit of water onto Jason’s cheek. His boy jerked awake, shaking the chair.

“I’m up, I’m up.” he blinked owlishly at Bruce and reached up with the cape to wipe at the drops of water on his cheek. He frowned at the corner, “Not nice, B.”

Bruce grinned at him, “Did you get the report pulled up for me?”

Jason nodded, and pushed the chair back from the desk, making to stand. Bruce plucked him up, sat in the chair and settled him on his lap.

“You don’t need to put any pressure on that ankle.” he said to the shocked face below his.

Jason made Bruce describe the night in detail as he typed up his report. He wrote in the main points, pausing every few minutes to answer a question or two. Jason kept the cape tugged around him, leaning back against Bruce’s chest as a comfortable warm weight.

When Bruce finished the majority of it, he scooped Jason back into his arms, the cape pooled and dripping over his arm, “Bedtime.”

Jason yawned, “Your report looks half done.”

“Don’t school me on reports.” Bruce chided gently as he carried him back upstairs.

“I’m saving that for the next time you tell me I didn’t finish one.” Jason said, wrapping his arms around Bruce’s neck so he could bury his head in his shoulder.

Jason gave up the cape only once Bruce had him tucked into his bed, the warmth of one thing replaced for another.

“Thanks for being my backup tonight.”

“Thanks for letting me join you in spirit.” Jason grinned.

Bruce smiled back at him, “Get some rest and maybe you can join me physically in a few more days. If not I might have to replace you with a flock of bats.”

Jason waved him off with a tired hand under the blanket, “You’d still need me, I did all the research tonight.” he yawned.

“True. I always need you by my side.” Bruce said and pushed Jason’s hair off his forehead and leaned down to press a kiss there, “Sleep well, Jaylad.”

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact, the bat bombs thing is something I did come across when looking up historical facts for this fic.


End file.
